Cahokia Mounds - North American Pyramids

Here is a visit I took to the Cahokia Mounds also known as the Monk Mounds right at the Southern border of Illinois.

This is a mural at the entrance of the museum next to the mounds. This depicts what it must have looked like at its prime around 900 AD.

This mound is the largest mound in North America and has an even larger footprint than the Great Pyramid of Cheops. I've been to quite a few different Native American mound sites in the Midwest. Most are effigy mounds in the shape of animals but these ones at Cahokia seem to have taken inspiration from the stepped pyramids of South America. Perhaps they had travelers and traders that wanted to bring their own version back to the Midwest.

The mounds were surrounded by numerous huts and the inhabitants had quite a few interests other than just hunting, gathering and farming.

Deer are quite plentiful in the Midwest and probably were a main source of meat for this culture.

They would use spears, arrows and had many different sizes and shapes for hunting different types of game. They would also fish in the rivers nearby mainly the Mississippi river. I can imagine the large spear head being used to pierce a huge catfish or finish off a wounded deer for dinner.

They also had finer tools like fish hooks and needles that were made out of large snail shells.

Crops were also cultivated mainly corn, squash and other seed bearing plants. They built large clay pots to store corn and seeds for use during the winter. I would imagine they probably made some kind of tortilla out of the corn.

Near the middle of the city archaeologists found some of the remains showed signs of malnutrition. They probably ate too much corn and not enough vegetables and meat, quite similar to our modern day city dwellers eating too much fast food.

There must have been plenty of time for recreation in this society. Archaeologists uncovered quite a few varieties of pipes made out of pipe stone. I'm not sure exactly what they were smoking but they took care to make interesting sculptures for this habit. Most of the shapes are of different animals and some human figures.

Here is an interesting spider pendant made out of abalone. This might have been a status symbol or possibly a cherished gift.

Tattoos were also a part of their culture. This clay pot records some of the patterns they would use to tattoo themselves. The feathered sticks and thorns from a thorn bush were used to pierce the skin, I'm not sure what they used for ink, maybe walnut ink...

Trading along the Mississippi river was part of their routine as well. Large trees would be cut down and hollowed out to make a boat. These mounds are fairly close to the river and I would imagine various tribes would visit here to trade via the river.

A few clay tablets were uncovered around the mounds depicting different animals. This one is called the birdman tablet because it shows a human figure dressed like a bird. The back of it has a snakeskin pattern etched into it. Perhaps this was used to record an event or remember a tribal leader in the past...

The interpretive center was quite impressive and had many more artifacts. Now it is time to go outside and see what the mounds look like today.

There are roughly 80 mounds in this area. Most are fairly small but some are quite large. You can see them as you walk towards the larger Monk mound.

The trees show a bit of scale compared to the smaller mounds.

Here it is the big monk mound. It must have been quite a site at its zenith.

On top you can see for miles around and you can even see the St. Louis arch off in the distance. Every time I end up going to Missouri I usually end up stopping here to learn something new about the mounds. It's only about 30 minutes away from the City of St. Louis so you can see the big arch and the mounds easily within a few hours if you ever visit.

That's all for now thanks for looking :-)